


In Clay

by assuwatar



Series: Moon and Sun [1]
Category: Hittite kingdom
Genre: ... to some extent, Child Abuse, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, a very cute six-year-old Mursili, lots of tablets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 09:43:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17465132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/assuwatar/pseuds/assuwatar
Summary: In the aftermath of the Great Queen's exile, the Great King Šuppiluliuma's new wife is determined to earn her place in the Hittite kingdom. Meanwhile, her youngest stepson does his best to uphold her expectations while longing to find a place of his own.





	In Clay

The first time my husband kisses me openly, the whole of Ḫattuša is watching.

It happens late in the year, on the day his troops return from their campaign against Mitanni. That morning, I wake up to an unusually quiet city and a layer of snow that makes me miss Karduniaš more than ever. I try to rub the goosebumps off my skin as I call for the fire to be kindled. It bursts into life mercifully fast. I dress just an arm’s length away from the flames, letting the hot air billow through my ceremonial robes. Always dress where it is warm – that was one of the first lessons I learnt when I arrived in this northern land. Going out in cold clothes is tempting fate.

By the time I make my way into the palace courtyard, it’s already teeming with people, palace workers, guards, nobles, visiting dignitaries, all bowing as I walk through the crowd. Not one of them whispers behind my back. Good. I know many of them still have loyalties towards the last queen – one year is not enough to forget – but so long as they keep quiet and obey me, it doesn’t matter. In the end, love means less to a ruler than power.

I smile bitterly. As a child, I refused to believe it; I thought that somehow, despite being born to the king of Karduniaš, I would marry out of fondness for a man, not out of necessity, and his people would respect me for who I am, not for what I symbolise. But I was naive then. I knew from the moment the Great King Šuppiluliuma first unveiled me that it would be otherwise. This was not a man you grew fond of. This was a man you allied yourself with, sometimes admired, often feared; and if I was to survive in this new land, I would have to be like him.

The sight of my brother-in-law, Zita, draws me away from my thoughts. He is standing near the gates with my youngest stepchildren, all three of which are fidgeting. Eleven-year-old Zannanza stops scuffing the snow with the upturned ends of his shoes when he catches my eye. He nudges Muwatti, then tiny Muršili. Their heads snap up.

‘May the gods keep you well, my lady Tawananna,’ says Zita, bowing. He lays a hand on Zannanza’s shoulder blades and on the back of Muršili’s head, prompting them to imitate him, while Muwatti curtsies. She’s the first to straighten up. She stares at the necklace at my throat, her bushy eyebrows puckered into a frown.

‘You’re wearing our mother’s jewellery,’ she declares.

I turn towards my smallest stepson without answering. Her resentment won’t change the fact that I am Šuppiluliuma’s queen now. The child keeps his eyes down as I examine him, pursing my lips at the brown cloak that covers his body all the way down to his feet, where it trails in the snow. I call him forward.

‘Boy, what is this you are wearing?’

He twists his thumbs, eyes still down. His brother speaks up from behind him.

‘Please don’t be angry, Tawananna. He forgot his cloak in his room and Zita said we didn’t have time to go get it, so one of the soldiers gave him his instead.’

I take another look at the coarse wool and shake my head.

‘He needs to take it off. He can’t appear in front of the people like this.’

‘But he’ll get cold –’

‘And he will have to deal with it. You are children of the Great King,’ I say, letting my gaze weigh on each of them in turn. ‘You represent the might and nobility of the kingdom, now, as your father returns from a successful campaign, more than ever. Today he depends on you to showcase what his seed is worth.’

Stepping forward, Zita takes the cloak from the boy’s shoulders and bundles it up. He hands it to one of the palace girls standing behind him. Both Zannanza and Muwatti continue to glare at me, their jaws tight.

‘What if he gets sick?’ Zannanza asks.

‘Then it will teach him not to forget his cloak,’ I tell him. ‘Come now. The people are waiting to see us.’

I nod to Zita, who gives the order to open the gates. As they swing on their hinges, a clamour rises, soon followed by the faces of thousands of men, women and children lining the streets. I lift my chin. For a heartbeat, the clouds part to let a ray of sunlight through, and as the gold at my throat and wrists glints, I make myself smile. It’s more ceremonial than genuine, of course, but I have to. This is an image the people won’t soon forget.

Perched on the palace steps, Zita and the children behind me, I scan the throng. They are different from the people of Karduniaš – a tone paler, their clothes less embroidered, the women’s veils longer – but strangely, I don’t feel so out of place among them as I used to. I feel like a scribe given fresh clay to mould. No matter how foreign the stylus, the words I will imprint will be my own, and if I work deftly, they will last generations.

If I work deftly. I position my feet better. The tablet is far from completed, and this day could seal it or break it.

In the distance I can see the first of my husband’s chariots travelling up the road, heavy with looted gold, silver, lapis lazuli and precious fabrics. It’s too far away for me to make out any faces, but I know from the sounds of the crowd that it isn’t the Great King. The driver – likely a high-ranking general – waves at the acclaiming people, holding up the head of what must be some desert prince. Snow blankets its hair and comes to rest on the bridge of its nose. I hide my disgust. I’ve seen severed heads before, but they don’t become easier to contemplate with time.

I glance back to check that the children haven’t reacted inappropriately. Zannanza and Muwatti are standing as they should, hands clasped behind their backs, though I can see the horror in their eyes. Only Muršili isn’t watching. He’s staring up longingly at his brother, his arms wrapped around his skinny waist, and his shoulders are shaking.

‘Don’t shiver,’ I tell him. ‘It’s unbecoming of a prince.’

For a heartbeat, he meets my eyes. He blinks the snow away from his lashes.

‘I’m cold,’ he stammers.

‘And whose fault is that?’

He says nothing. I turn back to the crowd, which is parting for more chariots and foot soldiers leading captives. The people of Ḫattuša shout jeers at them about Mitanni, then quieten as another chariot appears. I recognise the two men standing behind the driver almost at once. The one on the left is dressed in deep blue, his undone hair blowing around his thick neck and warrior’s shoulders, and when he lifts his arms, the people cheer. The man next to him, slightly smaller, laughs and brushes the snow from his green robe. He waves at us from afar. Muwatti waves back.

‘It’s Piyaššili,’ she beams, ‘and Arnuwanda!’

‘Steady, girl,’ I tell her. If she runs off to greet them, none of us would be able to catch her in this crowd.

With a mumbled apology, she straightens and folds her hands neatly into each other again. I nod in approval. However much she dislikes me, I can only be proud of her progress over the last year. Her feistiness is turning to confidence, her stubbornness to determination. One day these traits will be her most valuable – even more so than her pretty looks. One day she will be like me, a barely-grown bride fighting for her place in a foreign land. If only she could see that my strictness is meant to help her win.

The first chariot draws up in front of us, and Zita urges the children forward so the general with the head can bow before them. As he rises and takes place at my side, my eyes fall on my youngest stepson again. He’s still shaking. His teeth are chattering now too, making his chin tremble like a toddler about to cry. I call his name. His head jerks towards me.

‘I told you to stop shivering, boy.’

‘I – I know –‘

‘Then do it.’ I narrow my eyes at him, and he takes in a breath between his teeth and holds it. Looking into his scrunched-up face, I feel a hint of sympathy. Winter is cold in these mountains.

But if the boy is to learn, I must stand firm.

‘At least keep your teeth from chattering,’ I tell him before facing the crowd once again.

It’s only then that I realise how hushed everything has become. The snow drifts down steadily, muffling the clop of the horses, and every man, woman and child of Ḫattuša has their head turned towards the west. A brightly painted chariot is moving forward, in the intermittent light of the Sungod. My insides seem to flip upside down. It’s as if the people’s attention is peeling away from me, from all of us, to focus on this one man riding into the lower city, this one man to whom they owe everything.

Šuppiluliuma. The Great King. My husband.

Arnuwanda and Piyaššili have reached the midway point of the street by now, but it’s as if they weren’t there – just ghosts echoing the flesh-and-blood man behind them. He doesn’t smile as he meets his subjects’ gazes. His lips set against each other, his right hand lightly but steadily holding a sword, he glides past thousands upon thousands of gaping mouths without so much as shifting on his feet. He has the appearance of strength itself. In his presence, each and every one of us has no choice but to match him, fall at his feet, or die.

I am his queen, I think as my heart starts beating faster. The closest thing to an equal he has. But as always when I look into his face, I have to will myself to believe it.

And his child is still hunched at my side, chattering, as if his father wasn’t about to set eyes on us for the first time in half a year.

‘Stop it,’ I mutter so my words don’t carry above the silence.

He doesn’t react. I harden my voice.

‘Muršili. For the last time. I said stop it.’

Still no reaction. His older brothers are getting close now, close enough that they can see him shaking. My hands tense around each other. I need to bring the boy back to his senses now, before my husband catches up and all eyes come to rest on us again.

‘Zita,’ I say to my brother-in-law, ‘slap him.’

The slap rings out, dry and loud, but the people are too absorbed by Šuppiluliuma’s return to hear. Muršili doesn’t cry. He takes a few steps back and blinks, and thankfully, he’s too stunned to shiver. Ignoring Muwatti’s withering look and Zannanza who reaches out to take the boy’s hand – a gesture that Zita stops soon enough – I walk forward to greet Arnuwanda and Piyaššili as they dismount from their chariot. They bow deeply then embrace me each in turn, first Arnuwanda then Piyaššili, and we wish each other well. They look less old than when I last saw them, though of course that can’t be. Back then, I was intimidated by them being older than me; it seemed strange that my husband’s first three children were already grown, more so than I was. Since then, I’ve come to learn that age, like love, doesn’t matter.

‘Telepinu sends his greetings,’ says Piyaššili as he breaks away from me. ‘Unfortunately, matters will keep him in Kizzuwatna for the winter.’

Matters like the snow, I think as my eyes dart to the clouds. Telepinu is right to stay in the southern plain, where the weather stays mild all year round.

Then, before I can answer, another chariot pulls up behind my stepsons’. This time it’s my turn to fall to my knees, and I respectfully keep my eyes low as a pair of upturned shoes crunch across the ground towards me, leisurely, in the way of a man who knows we all have no choice but to wait for him. His feet stop two steps away from me. His voice pierces the silence.

‘Rise, my Tawananna.’

I push myself up. My eyes cross his, and I hold his stare without flinching. He still doesn’t smile. Not for the first time, I wonder if he ever does.

‘May the gods attend you with strength and good health,’ I say, my tone as even as his.

‘And you, my lady.’ His eyes run over me appreciatively. ‘You hold yourself like the Sungoddess herself.’

I do my best not to flush. He is pleased with me. The knowledge courses through my veins like liquid gold.

To my right, I sense Zita descending the stairs to bow, too, in front of his brother. Šuppiluliuma orders him to stand. Sheathing his sword, my husband turns towards me.

‘Have you taken good care of my children?’

I keep my gaze on him, unfaltering, praying they have had the sense to behave properly behind me. ‘I have, Your Sun.’

He looks past me, then nods. ‘You have done well.’

I let my breath out. Muršili must have finally stopped his childish performance – my husband would have remarked on it otherwise. I hold out my hand to him and smile. The little foreign princess has proven herself more skillful than she seemed.

Šuppiluliuma clasps my hand and then, before my mind can register what is happening, his other hand has slipped behind my neck and his mouth is on mine. It isn’t a passionate kiss; it’s strong, almost forceful, and meant for the whole of Ḫattuša to see. I kiss him back in the same way. Distantly, I’m aware of people erupting into applause. When our lips break apart, we barely look at each other, and turn instead to face the crowd. I lift my chin, and it feels more natural than ever.

Foreign or not, loved or not, I am the Great Queen. The Tawananna. I have my husband’s approval, and as long as I do, this city is like a tablet in the palm of my hand.

As we climb the stairs to the palace gates, fingers entwined, Arnuwanda and Piyaššili walking on either side of us, I look for my youngest stepchildren and find that only two of them are there. I call Zannanza in anger. My husband places a quietening hand on my arm.

‘Don’t mind Muršili,’ he says. ‘He’s nothing more than a soft-hearted boy. My men will go after him for you.’

He motions to Zita. Piyaššili steps in between them.

‘Father,’ he says before Šuppiluliuma can speak, ‘if you will allow me, I think I know where he might have gone.’

With a flick of his hand, my husband commands him to go. The whole matter takes no more than a few heartbeats. Then I am in front of the gates again, the Great King at my side, the children tense but well-behaved, and the boy slips out of my mind like rainwater. My husband is right. I got Muršili to show himself as he ought to; that’s the most I can expect of him, and the most the people need. It’s not to him they have to look up. It’s to me.

And in this moment, I think as the clouds part and the Great King squeezes my hand, they are.

*

Everyone is too busy looking at Father and the Tawananna to see me escape, but I still run as fast as I can just to be sure. I run and run and run until I’m too tired, and then I walk fast all the way to the Great Temple. The doorkeeper lets me in because he knows me. He asks me why I’m by myself and I lie and say my brothers sent me here. The Tawananna doesn’t like it when I lie, I think as I say it, but then the Tawananna doesn’t like it when I do a lot of things. She always finds something to be mean about.

I want to go into the cella but I’m scared the priests will tell me off for going there without Father, so I go to the archives instead. The schoolmaster took me and Muwatti and Zannanza there once so I know where they are. I push the door open with both of my hands. It’s warm inside. I walk past the shelves until I get to the fireplace, and then I lie down on the ground and curl up and don’t move anymore. My body feels like it’s melting. It feels good.

I don’t want to cry but it happens anyway. I’m starting to feel my face a bit more now and it makes the place where Zita hit me even more sore. I know it was my fault. I shouldn’t have forgotten my cloak. But it still makes me angry, and sad.

‘I hate the Tawananna,’ I mumble. ‘I hate the Tawananna. I hate the Tawananna. I hate the Tawananna,’ and then I stop saying it just in case someone hears and then tells her.

I open my hands and then close them. My fingers are red and stiff but they’re starting to feel better now. I suck on them to see if it helps. It does, a bit. I wipe them on my clothes and sit up. I rub my eyes hard to make the tears go away. Tears are for babies, and I’m not a baby anymore.

‘Pull yourself together, boy,’ says the Tawananna inside my mind. ‘Don’t be weak.’

I stand up and look around. There’s nobody else here, just rows and rows of tablets with all sorts of different sizes and shapes. The schoolmaster said they have names but I can’t remember them. I sniff and lick my lips and walk over to the closest shelf. The Tawananna can be as mean as she likes but there’s one thing she can’t be mean about, and that’s that I already know how to read. Well, a bit. I can do the _tu-ta-ti_ lists and I even know some of the logograms. King is easy, and god, which is also _an._ With that I can read a lot more words than people think a six-year-old like me can.

I pull out a tablet from the lowest shelf and try to understand what it’s about. There’s a sign that comes back a lot – I think it’s the ritual one. That’s boring. It’s much more fun to go to rituals for real than to read all about them. I put the tablet back. I want something more exciting, like Gilgameš or Kumarbi.

There’s a tablet right at the top that looks good, with lots of small writing. I stand on my tiptoes and reach up but I’m still too little. I wish Zannanza was there to help me. Well, he’s not, so I bite my tongue and put my foot on a part of the shelf where there aren’t any tablets, and I push myself up until I can grab the one I want. The shelf wobbles. I freeze. The Tawananna will be even more angry than before if I break something. But the gods have mercy and make everything stable again, and I manage to jump down quickly before anything bad happens.

I look at the writing and right away I know it was worth it. I’ve seen the first words so many times that I know them by heart.

‘Thus speaks the Tabarna,’ I whisper, ‘Te… le… pinu. Thus speaks the Tabarna Telepinu, the Great King.’

‘Thus speaks the prince Piyaššili,’ says a voice from behind me. I gasp and trip backwards. ‘You’re a good reader.’

My brother is standing by the fire and he smiles when I stare at him. There’s snow on his clothes and shoes that hasn’t melted yet. I hug the tablet to my chest. Piyaššili is nice, but I know who sent him. I can’t escape anymore now.

‘I was worried about you,’ says Piyaššili. ‘I thought you might have gone to see the Sungoddess, but the cella was empty and none of the priests said they’d seen you. I should have guessed you would be here instead.’

I hug the tablet harder and stay quiet.

‘I saw Zita slap you,’ he says. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes.’

I make myself look as brave as I can. I’m not sure that Piyaššili believes me, so I narrow my eyes like the Tawananna does and I glare at him until he looks away. I cross my arms over the tablet. I’m not weak.

‘Hm,’ says Piyaššili and he sits down on one of the benches. I don’t move. ‘Would you like to come over and show me what tablet you have there?’

‘You’re not going to take me back to the palace?’

‘I thought I might warm up a bit first. The Tawananna won’t mind if we take a while longer.’ He smiles again. ‘She will likely be too busy with Father’s return to notice.’

That’s not true, I think, she’ll be mean and say it was my fault, but I don’t say it out loud. I don’t want to think about her right now, anyway. I shuffle forward and sit down next to Piyaššili. I put the tablet on his knees. I swing my legs while he reads it in his mind.

‘The Proclamation of Telepinu,’ he says. ‘That’s a good choice. Without Telepinu our kingdom would not be where it is now.’

I keep swinging my legs and looking at Piyaššili’s hands instead of his face. The words that I want to say come out very quietly.

‘He’s my favourite Great King.’

‘Hm?’ Out of the corner of my eye, I see Piyaššili turn his head towards me.

‘I said that Telepinu is my favourite Great King.’

He doesn’t tell me off for saying that, like Father would. Father doesn’t like Telepinu very much. He says that he was naive, which means you think things are easier than they are, and that being nice to people doesn’t stop them from hurting you. You have to hurt them first, so they can’t. That’s what Father always tells me.

But Piyaššili doesn’t. Instead he nods and says that he can understand why I like Telepinu.

‘Who’s your favourite Great King?’ I ask.

He thinks for a while before answering.

‘I don’t really have a favourite.’

‘But you have to pick one.’

‘Do I?’ He laughs a bit. ‘In that case, I think I’ll go for the first Ḫattušili. He built our kingdom from nothing, after all.’

‘I know,’ I say and then feel bad because I interrupted him. ‘The schoolmaster read me his annals.’

‘You read Ḫattušili’s annals? In Akkadian?’

I nod. It’s not completely true, since I didn’t understand everything, but I can see in Piyaššili’s face that he’s proud of me and I don’t want that to go away. It’s nice when he looks at me like this. It’s one of the reasons why he’s my favourite brother.

‘You know,’ I say and look around at the archives, ‘when I grow up I want to be a scribe and write Father’s annals.’

Piyaššili’s eyebrows lift up.

‘You don’t have to be a scribe for that, Muršili. I’m sure Father has many greater plans for you. Maybe he could make you a general in his army, or a dignitary in his assembly, and you could dictate his annals in your free time.’

‘But I don’t want to be a general or a dignitary,’ I explain slowly, so he understands. I don’t get why grown-ups are confused by this sort of thing. ‘I’m not good at that. I want to be a scribe and read and write for people.’

Piyaššili listens carefully, without saying anything. Then he gets up and walks away. At first I think I’ve said something wrong, and I jump up to say sorry before he can go tell the Tawananna, but he comes back almost right away with a stylus and a ball of clay. He shapes it with his palms and then pulls me down to sit on his knee. He puts the stylus in my hand. He makes his other arm go around me and holds out the empty tablet in front of me.

‘How would you write Father’s annals, then?’

I scratch my nose with the stylus. I try not to smile too much, but his question makes me happier than anything he said about the assembly.

‘Well, we have to start with: thus speaks Muršili…’

It takes me a while to write it, because Piyaššili is watching and I need to make it really good. When I’m done, I twist around to see if he likes it. He messes up my hair.

‘And then what?’

‘And then…’ I suck on the end of the stylus. ‘When my father was a child, the gods decided he was going to be great.’

‘All right. Do you know the sign for child?’

I shake my head. Piyaššili puts his hand over mine and writes it, then he lets go so I can finish the sentence. I lean against his arm while I think of the next one.

‘They decided it because he was strong and intelligent and he wasn’t ever scared of anything.’

‘He wasn’t ever scared of anything?’

‘Yes. Not even of wolves, or enemies, or evil spirits, or being in the dark.’ My voice goes quiet. ‘Or the Tawananna.’

Piyaššili frowns and looks at me for a long time. His arm curls more tightly around me.

‘Are you scared of the Tawananna, Muršili?’

I shrug.

‘I won’t tell her if you are.’

I shrug again and twirl the stylus around in my fingers. I can’t tell him the truth about that. If I do he’ll know I’m not strong and brave like I’m supposed to be.

I go back to writing but I find it difficult to remember how the signs are supposed to go. I’m feeling sad again all of a sudden and I don’t know why. I lift the stylus up from the clay.

‘Piyaššili,’ I say just loud enough that he can hear me, ‘is _anna_ really never coming back?’

He sighs and squeezes my shoulder. I know what that means even before he answers. That’s what grown-ups always do when they have to tell you something bad.

‘No, she isn’t coming back. But that doesn’t means she’s gone forever. She’s still here,’ he says and touches his chest, ‘and in your memory.’

I look down.

‘I don’t even remember what she looked like.’

‘Well… She was very pretty. She had black hair all the way down to her waist, and she was almost as tall as me. She had eyes just like mine, too.’ He turns my face towards his so I can see. ‘And she always said we had the same nose.’

I draw a line down it with my finger. Then I touch my own one.

‘What about me?’

He thinks for a while.

‘The way you look at the world,’ he says in the end, ‘she used to do that.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘She had a way of watching everything intensely, with her chin in her hand, like everything was important and she was wondering about it. You do it too.’

‘I do?’

‘Yes.’ He taps the end of my nose. It makes me giggle. ‘You always look like you’re thinking about something.’

I tell him I’m thinking about all the things I’m going to write when I’m a scribe, and also about how I can do things right so Father can be proud of me and lets me write his annals, and Piyaššili says ‘hm’ to show he’s listening and slips me off his knee so he can put back the tablet about the Great King Telepinu. He tidies away the one with my writing in a bag that’s hanging from his belt. I sit on the bench and swing my legs and talk until he’s done.

Then I realise what he’s doing. He’s getting ready to go home.

‘What is it?’ he asks when I stop talking.

I put both my feet on the ground and stare down. Piyaššili comes over to kneel in front of me.

‘Muršili,’ he says, ‘it’s going to be all right. I’ll tell the Tawananna I have already punished you so she doesn’t need to. In return, you can be well-behaved at the feast tonight. Does that sound fair?’

I twist my thumbs for a while before saying yes. I know the Tawananna will be angry anyway, but Piyaššili isn’t like me, he’s a grown-up and a warrior and maybe because of that she’ll listen to him. She always listens to important people.

I lift up my head and stand up and go out of the archives behind Piyaššili. I take extra big steps to walk in his footprints, and he stops at the end of the courtyard and waits for me to catch up. I put on my brave face again so he can see I’m not finding it difficult, I’m just taking my time. When I get to him, he squeezes my shoulder.

‘Would you like my cloak?’ he asks while the doorkeeper pushes the doors open.

I shake my head. Piyaššili gets ready to take it off anyway.

‘Are you sure?’

I nod.

‘Let me know if you change your mind,’ Piyaššili says, and then he lets me go out first.

We walk up the street to the palace together, and I try as hard as I can to look like the son of the Great King. It’s a bit easier with Piyaššili next to me. A lot of things are easier with Piyaššili next to me, really. He makes me feel like I can be what Father and the Tawananna want me to be.

And all the way home, I don’t even shiver.

**Author's Note:**

> Historical notes:
> 
> Karduniaš is one of several Hittite names for Babylon.
> 
> The tu-ta-ti lists were one of the earliest steps of scribal education, more or less equivalent to our alphabet. They were used by children around the age of six or seven to practise their signs, beginning with tu-ta-ti, then nu-na-ni, bu-ba-bi, and so on.
> 
> Muršili did in fact grow up to write his father's annals, in a text we call the Deeds of Šuppiluliuma. He also wrote two sets of annals for his own reign, the Ten Year Annals and the Complete Annals. However, it's likely he dictated them rather than writing them himself.
> 
> ‘Anna’ is the Hittite word for ‘mother’.


End file.
